Debbie Reynolds was indeed the girl next door. But only if you lived
next door to a self-centered, totally driven, insecure, untruthful
phony.
By the time I was thirty-three years old I'd been married to America's
sweetheart and America's femme fatale and both marriages had ended in
scandal; I'd been one of the most popular singers in America and had
given up my career for love; I had fathered two children and adopted
two children and rarely saw any of them; I was addicted to
methamphetamines and I couldn't sleep at night without a huge dose of
Librium. And from all this I had learned one very important lesson:
There were no rules for me. I could get away with anything so long as
that sound came out of my throat.
[on Richard Burton] Who could take that scruffy arrogant buffoon seriously?
On his service in the United States Army: The Army gave me a lot more than I gave it. Why I did shows I never would have done. In the rain, the mud, off the backs of trucks, without a mike and sometimes without even music.
[about his ex wife Debbie Reynolds] Debbie has to dominate every situation in which she finds herself.